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Meet the Tiktaalik
Today’s animal (fossil?) started as a request from my partner. A guitarist from a band he likes just released a Tiktaalik-inspired solo album, and he wanted to know more. And then, just a few days later, we saw a Tiktaalik exhibit at the Harvard Museum of Natural History! So I obviously HAD to tell you […]
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Meet the red-cockaded woodpecker
You might have missed it, but a big conservation bill passed in the House of Representative this week: the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act. This bill is HUGE news for conservation. There are currently more than 1,600 endangered or threatened species living in the United States. The Endangered Species Act of 1973 provides protection for them, […]
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Meet the Japanese flying squid
I have something to admit: I think mammals are the coolest. I just really like mammals, with birds as a close second. But I really want to make sure that I give all cool animals their due, so I’ve been trying to make sure I mix in some non-mammalian or non-avian species on this blog. […]
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Meet the aurochs
This past weekend, I was in Vermont; my partner was taking part in a bike race up there. On our way back to Boston, we stopped at Billings Farm and Museum, a fully-operational dairy farm that also has many exhibits explaining the farming process. I learned a lot about dairy farming AND got to see […]
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Meet the goblin shark
I like finding freaky animals. I just think they’re neat. It’s so much fun to see the variety of animals that we have on this earth. So, when my friend asked if I had ever written about a shark, I took it upon myself to find the freakiest shark possible: the goblin shark (Mitsukurina owstoni). […]
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Meet the turkey vulture
Summer is approaching, and life is thriving outside. One animal that I associate with summer is the turkey vulture. There’s just something linking heat and seeing a turkey vulture circling above my head. If you live in the United States, you’ve likely seen turkey vultures as well. Turkey vultures (Cathartes aura) are found throughout the […]
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Meet the Italian wolf
It’s an exciting time in my house: it’s time for Eurovision 2022!!! For those of you who don’t know, Eurovision is a European song contest. Each country picks an artist to represent them in the contest. Each song must be made in the past year, be under 3 minutes long, and be performed live. After […]
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Meet the hammer-headed bat
I like bats. They’re flying mammals that can echolocate; how cool is that? And I have exciting bat news today: I now have a favorite bat. I present to you the glorious, beautiful, and majestic hammer-headed bat (Hypsignathus monstrosus). Hammer-headed bats are a type of megabat – bats that belong to the family Pteropodidae. Megabats […]
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Meet the monarch butterfly
My 6th grade teacher really liked monarch butterflies. Like, a lot. We grew monarch butterflies in our classroom: there was a big butterfly net where we watched caterpillars grow, make a chrysalis, and hatch into butterflies over the span of just a month. At one point I think we let the monarchs fly around in […]
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Meet the coati
I have had the absolute pleasure of seeing today’s animal in the wild. My senior year of college, I went on a trip to Costa Rica over winter break for a class. One day, while we were getting ready to hike in the cloud forest, we saw a coati in the parking lot. He was […]
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Caitlyn Finton, PhD 